Coloring Blog by Päivi

With Sharpie markers, (and other similar markers) you can get a very smooth surface.

The point is not that duplication should be avoided. On the contrary, the more layers you make during the coloring, the more even the surface will get. Apply the new layer always as a part of the previous one, and even on top of it. Continue that way, filling the entire surface, and there will be no unpleasant blotches.

You can also color the entire area once and then the whole area again. It does not matter if the color dries in the meanwhile.

In any case, color the paper as many times as it takes to saturate the paper. Check from the other side of the paper if it is saturated enough.

Upper area is colored with just a single layer. The lower area is colored so that the paper is saturated, which took about three layers of color.

A saturated coloring requires a little more effort, but the coloring becomes much more meaningful when the outcome is wonderfully smooth and the color has been properly absorbed into the paper.

In the finished picture clouds and the sky have been colored using a Sharpie the way I have described here.

You can achieve an interesting combination with alcohol markers and gel pens when you first color the whole image with markers and then, on top of that, color the details with gel pens.

The left side of the figure is made with the markers only, and the right side has been finished with gel pens.

Please note that the background color may change because of gel pens in an unexpected way. Sometimes the result might be a very marvelous shade. You should therefore try the colors on a different piece of paper first, if you do not want to be surprised.

With this technique, you can have a vivid, and to my opinion, also a more balanced outcome than you could with gel pens only.

When an alcohol marker has dried out, it is by no means to be thrown into the trash! There is usually still ink in it, only the solvent has dried. You can make a dried out alcohol marker fully usable with this simple little trick.

1. Pour some rubbing alcohol into a glass jar and put the marker in it, so that the tip of the pen is completely covered in liquid. Keep it there for about five minutes.

2. Put the cap of the pen back on and hold the marker tip-side down for at least two days.

3. Take the marker and color!

After recovery, the tone is usually slightly less opaque than before, but on the other hand this means you get beautiful pastel shades, which are often hard to find.

This image was colored with the two markers shown in the first picture, after they had been revived.

Coloring was started in the middle of the picture, and it appears that in the beginning the tone is less opaque, but it deepens and stabilizes soon. However, the tone remains more pale than the original.